Provider or deployer: who is responsible for a chatbot's AI notice?

The two roles

The EU AI Act defines a provider as someone who develops an AI system, or has one developed, and places it on the market or puts it into service under their own name or trademark.

A deployer is someone who uses an AI system under their authority in a professional context - for example a shop that switches on a vendor's chatbot on its website.

What Article 50 asks of each

Article 50(1) - telling people they are interacting with an AI - is an obligation on providers.

Deployers have their own transparency duties elsewhere in Article 50: for example 50(3) on emotion recognition and biometric categorisation, and 50(4) on deepfakes and some AI-generated text published to inform the public. A standard customer-service chatbot usually doesn't trigger those.

Common situations

You built a chatbot on an AI model's API and put it on your site under your brand: you are likely the provider, and the 50(1) duty is yours.

You switched on Intercom Fin, Tidio Lyro or Crisp's AI: the vendor is the provider. You are a deployer. But what visitors see - labels, greetings - is usually configured by you.

Your agency built a custom bot for your business, under your name: you are likely the provider, even though you didn't write the code.

Why deployers still check

Being a deployer doesn't mean doing nothing makes sense. Intercom's own help centre says its AI label is off by default for newer setups and that customers are responsible for informing end users. If the notice isn't showing, your visitors aren't being told - and your contract with the vendor may say that's on you.